It appears the fate of a Medicare pay cut for physicians rests on when and if the White House and congressional negotiators reach agreement on a plan to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, the package of spending cuts and tax increases to be implemented in 2013 unless Congress intervenes.

 

Medicare reimbursement to doctors will be cut about 26 percent Jan. 1 unless Congress acts. Most observers say they think Congress will pass another in a series of short-term fixes that would cancel the cut, perhaps for one year.

 

But such legislation may not be considered separate from that dealing with the fiscal cliff, so for now, the physician pay cut issue is in limbo, sources tell BNA.

 

“I don't think the doc fix will fly alone,” Julius W. Hobson Jr., senior policy adviser at Polsinelli Shughart PC, in Washington, tells BNA. “It's all or nothing.”

 

Preliminary talks on averting the cut have begun, with a focus on how to pay for it. The Congressional Budget Office has said a one-year fix would cost $25 billion over 10 years.

 

Hobson said House Republicans are considering cutting hospital Medicare payment for evaluation and management services and eliminating a temporary Medicaid payment increase for physicians under the Affordable Care Act to offset the cost of a one-year fix.